Medicover is the largest foreign investor in the local medical service sector.
“Financial results are improving and, operationally, we are ready.”
The management team is mature, understands the group’s business model and will therefore get the opportunity to increase the business faster over the next few years, Stubbington told ZF in an interview.
The Swedish group held by businessmen Jonas and Robert af Jochnick entered Romania twenty years ago and is currently operating a 16-clinic network and a general hospital it opened in 2012, following EUR20 million investment. Revenue stood at 74 million lei (EUR17 million) in 2013, as generated by Medicover SRL and Medicover Hospitals SRL.
Besides opening new clinics in those cities is not present in yet, the company intends to expand some of the existing ones. The first to go through this process is the clinic in Timisoara, where Medicover invested EUR0.6 million to double capacity.
John Stubbington has a three-year experience in Romania. He was directly involved in running the Romanian operations in 2012-2013 and says the market has changed a lot since, while Medicover has not changed as fast.
Three years from opening its hospital, Medicover says it wants to expand it, but will complete the plans by yearend.
The hospital posted 24% growth in revenue last year and continued to grow in the first quarter, this time by 18%. The company is analyzing its expansion options, Stubbington says.
Whereas three years ago the company would not have considered expansion by acquisitions, now things have changed, the Medicover team is mature and can implement such a project, he added.
The Swedish group made acquisitions in Poland, Ukraine and UK and is now looking at Romania. Stubbington says the organization has reached maturity and it is now time to invest.
Medicover is one of the largest private medical service providers in Romania along with MedLife, Regina Maria and Sanador. The private healthcare providers posted almost EUR5 billion revenue together in 2013. (EUR1=RON4.4157)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)